Tom Sebourn is the Program Director of KGOE 1480 am Newstalk in Eureka California. The opinions and views expressed in this blog do not necessarily represent those of KGOE or it's parent company Bicoastal Media LLC.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Sea Absorbing Less CO2, Scientists Discover

Scientists have issued a new warning about climate change after discovering a sudden and dramatic collapse in the amount of carbon emissions absorbed by the Sea of Japan.The shift has alarmed experts, who blame global warming.The world's oceans soak up about 11bn tonnes of human carbon dioxide pollution each year, about a quarter of all produced, and even a slight weakening of this natural process would leave significantly more CO2 in the atmosphere. That would require countries to adopt much stricter emissions targets to prevent dangerous rises in temperature.Kitack Lee, an associate professor at Pohang University of Science and Technology, who led the research, says the discovery is the "very first observation that directly relates ocean CO2 uptake change to ocean warming".